


What a Great Smile

by thundercaya



Series: Exterminator!Steve [9]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Allergies, BFFs, Cecil via phone call, Friendly banter, Gen, Kevin joins us via text, Ride along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 16:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1311898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercaya/pseuds/thundercaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's that," Steve shrugged. "Also have you seen Kevin? If your boyfriend was that hot, you'd be sexting at every opportunity, too."</p><p>"My boyfriend is that hot," Carlos reminded.</p><p>"Ehhhh... debatable."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Great Smile

Steve's windows were all wide open when Carlos arrived, just to make sure the Sheriff's Secret Police didn't think they were trying to hide anything.

"You about ready to go?" Carlos asked when Steve answered the door.

"Just a minute," Steve said. "Come on in."

Carlos entered and took a seat on the couch next to Stella, who was needle-pointing a history paper. They exchanged greetings while Steve ducked into the hall. When he emerged, his shirt was tucked in and his shoes were on.

"Okay, I'm ready," he said. "By the way, when Kevin comes over tomorrow he'd like to do karaoke, if you and Cecil are up to it."

"Sounds fun," Carlos said, standing. "You know, I don't think I've ever heard you sing."

"Lucky you," Stella said, not looking up.

"I don't really like singing," Steve shrugged. "Karaoke's always been something I do to please the person I'm with."

"Dad, are you serious?" Stella asked, looking up now. "You sing in the car all the time."

"Really?" Carlos said. "You should sing something for me."

"What, you mean in the car?" Steve asked.

"Or now," Carlos shrugged.

"I don't know."

"Don't do it," Stella warned.

"Come on," Carlos insisted. "I'm gonna hear you at karaoke anyway. You might as well."

"I--no.  I don't-- I'm not-- I mean, I'd need-- I.... I...." Steve grabbed a Wiimote off the coffee table and brought it to his face like a microphone. " _I had no choice but to hear you. You stated your case time and again. I thought about it._ "

"Now you've done it," Stella said, getting off the couch. "Once he starts he never stops." She took her needlepoint and retreated into her room.

Carlos watched Steve with amused fascination until the older man turned the Wiimote sideways and used it as a stand-in for a harmonica. Mercifully--and perhaps a tad disappointingly--Steve was content to let the tune exist only in his head and did not attempt to vocalize an approximation.

"Steve," Carlos said. When he got no answer he tried again. " _Steve_."

Steve gave a jump and fumbled the Wiimote.

"You have an appointment."

"Right," Steve said. He cleared his throat. "Let's get going."

***

In the truck, Steve unwaveringly refused to do any more singing, insisting that Carlos had gotten enough of a preview. "Although if Cecil wouldn't kill me," he put in, "you and I should totally sing something together tomorrow."

Steve's phone rattled in the cup holder.

"Want me to check that for you?" Carlos asked, reaching for it.

Steve batted his hand away. "Work phone's in my pocket. That's my personal and that's probably Kevin and it's probably a sext. You're my best friend and I love you, but we will never be close enough for me to be okay with you reading that."

"I am _not_ complaining," Carlos said with his hands up. Though he did feel they were close enough for him to say; "I guess sexting helps with the whole long-distance thing, huh?"

"There's that," Steve shrugged. "Also have you _seen_ Kevin? If your boyfriend was that hot, you'd be sexting at every opportunity, too."

"My boyfriend _is_ that hot," Carlos reminded.

"Ehhhh... debatable."

"I'm gonna tell him you said that."

"No you're not," Steve dismissed. "We're all better off when he's not mad at me."

***

Once he was safely parked at the jobsite, Steve checked his phone.

"Smile, Carlos," he said, not giving the scientist time to react before snapping a picture of him.

"What the hell?" Carlos asked.

"Just letting Kevin know I'm not exactly free at the moment," Steve explained, sending the photo off. "All right, so let's get these fucking gophers."

***

"I thought traps were a method for homeowners to use," Carlos said, setting one out the way Steve had shown him. "Don't exterminators have more active methods?"

"Carlos, do you know how long I've been doing this job?"

"Here we go."

"I've been doing this job since before your voice dropped. I've been doing this job _here_ since before you took your SATs. Perfect score? Maybe. I bet. Regardless, do not _tell me_ how to do my job. Sure, I could smoke or gas them out. That works on gophers. But do you know what that doesn't work on? Mini sand sharks. Why? Because unlike gophers, who can really only escape through existing holes and run away if they're successful, a mini sand shark can cut _right through the ground_ probably _right where you're standing_ , and when they do, they don't run. They attack. So are traps just a bit passive? Yeah. So what? I'm a bit passive. And I'd rather let them come out when they're not trying to eat me."

"All right, all right," Carlos said. "I was just asking. And I got 1390."

"Still better than mine," Steve said, setting the last trap. He rubbed his hands together. "All right, how about lunch?"

***

"Late lunch today?" Carlos asked as they walked into Big Rico's.

"Carlos, when you work irregular hours, it doesn't matter what time it is or how many meals you've already had that day. If you break for a meal, it's lunch."

"I work irregular hours, too," Carlos pointed out.

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "But you don't break for meals."

Carlos grinned sheepishly--he hadn't eaten all day. "Touché."

Steve ordered first, and as he waited for Carlos to complete his transaction he eyed the scientist's Nightmare Before Christmas wallet.

"New wallet?" he asked as they made their way to an empty table.

"I just started using it, yeah," Carlos confirmed as they sat, "but I've had it for a while. I bought it when Cecil and I went to Disneyland."

"Oh yeah, that's right. You guys got to go on a real vacation. Must've been nice."

"It was," Carlos said. It was mostly true, and Carlos couldn't exactly talk about the ways in which it wasn't. "Have you ever been?"

"Shit, ages ago," Steve said. "It was awful."

"What?" Carlos asked, aghast. "You had to have-- I mean, _come on_. Tell me you at least liked The Jungle Cruise."

"Didn't really do anything for me," Steve shrugged. "Besides, the amount of Illuminati imagery in that park was sickening."

Carlos gazed sadly at his bowl of tomatoes and cheese. "Steve, I'm sorry to say this, but if you hate Disneyland we can't be friends."

"What?" Steve asked with a laugh.

Carlos didn't look at him.

Steve sat up straighter. "Carlos, are you--What? Come on man, don't do this to me. It wasn't my--Look, it was sweltering, and, and, and crowded, and the lines were _so_ long. I was like twenty and I'd never gone as a kid and I didn't have one of my own so there was no nostalgia and none of that having-fun-because-your-kids-are-having-fun-thing to make up for it. We drove there in a tiny car with no AC and my girlfriend, she broke up with me after. And the Jungle Cruise thing was _not_ my fault. The skipper wasn't into it. It was the end of the night and maybe he just didn't want to be there anymore, but how am I supposed to have fun if the guy who's supposed to make sure I have fun isn't having fun, right? And I mean if I ignore his shitty delivery I guess it was still kind of funny. Uh, you know, that whole 'back side of water' thing, and uh, 'head hunter territory is a terrible place to be-headed,' and--"

"Steve," Carlos cut in finally, grinning. "It's okay. I was just fucking with you."

Steve just stared, body tense.

"That's for the 'do you know how long I've been doing this job' speech," Carlos explained.

The tension fell out of Steve's shoulders and he slumped in his seat, crossing his arms petulantly. "That's not fucking funny, Carlos; you're my only friend."

"That is the exact reason why it's funny," Carlos said, starting in on his food.

"I'd say I'll kill you if you pull that shit again, but you know. Only friend."

"You should try making friends with Benny," Carlos suggested. "Seeing as he missed out on the whole 'let's all hate on Steve Carlsberg' party."

"Are you kidding?" Steve asked. "I still can't look that guy in the eye."

"How come?" Carlos asked.

"I'll let Cecil tell you that story."

***

"Well, would you look at _that_ ," Steve said triumphantly as he approached the first trap. It contained a gopher, or rather half of one, as well as gopher-sized sand shark.

"Okay, you were right," Carlos said.

Steve ignored this. "Hey little guy," he said, crouching by the trap. "Not that hungry? Then I guess if we'd tried to gas you out, you would've only bit _one_ of us."

"Steve, I already said you were right."

"All right, all right," Steve said. He grabbed the cage with two gloved hands, about to lift it, but he paused as he was hit with a massive sneeze. He made a displeased noise and grimaced.

"Steve," Carlos said cautiously, eyes wide. "Don't... touch them, but there's something wrong with your teeth."

Only the warning kept Steve from running his tongue over his teeth experimentally as he was suddenly aware that something about his mouth _did_ feel off. He went to his truck and checked his reflection in the side view mirror. His teeth were very large and looked very sharp.

"What the fuck."

***

Determining what was wrong with Steve would have been a lot easier if either he or Carlos remembered the last time Steve had worked with mini sand sharks--and remembered that they were actually just gophers who had caught sand shark flu. As it was, the entire incident had been removed from Steve's memory while Carlos was left with an altered version, free of sharks of any kind.

Once they determined that Steve wasn't in immediate danger--aside from a couple more sneezes he wasn't showing any symptoms of illness--they made their way to Carlos' lab for a closer look.

Most of the other scientists had already headed home this late in the day, but the ones that were still there had to be persuaded not to pull out Steve's teeth for closer inspection. Carlos sent them on their way and set to work.

"Well, it doesn't look serious," Carlos said. "As far as I can tell it's just a minor allergic reaction."

"That's weird," Steve said. "I've worked with mini sand sharks before and I've never had this happen to me. I mean, yeah, I have all these lovely huge gaping holes in my memory, but why would they make me forget being allergic to mini sand sharks?"

"Maybe it's new," Carlos said, "and they made you forget whatever _made_ you allergic."

"That makes a lot more sense and you should probably talk about something else now."

"Oh, perfect, I need to call Cecil anyway," Carlos said. "I try to always talk to him before his show and I'm almost out of time, probably. Do you mind?"

"Go right ahead," Steve said pulling out his own phone to shoot a text to Kevin.

Cecil answered almost immediately.

"Hello, sweetheart! Are you enjoying your evening with Steve in spite of Steve?"

"Funny story, babe," Carlos said. "I'm helping Steve out with a minor medical problem. He's kind of got shark teeth right now."

"Again?" Cecil asked.

Carlos perked up at that. "Wait, babe, I can't really hear you," he said, overly loud, before switching the phone to speaker. Steve paused in the middle of typing his text and met Carlos' eyes. "I thought you said 'again,'" Carlos went on. "But I'm sure you didn't."

"Well... well, no, I did," Cecil said, hesitantly; he had never known about Bella's involvement with curing Steve, so he hadn't needed to be re-educated, but he did know about the gopher sharks. Just the same, he knew Carlos' memory had been altered for a reason, and he didn't want to get his boyfriend in trouble again. "But I didn't mean... 'shark teeth again.' I meant 'bringing you his stupid problems again.'" There was some extra weight behind the next sentence. "Like that time he had a perfectly normal flu and instead of going to the hospital like a normal person to get prescribed antibiotics, he asked you to make him some."

" _Ohh_ ," Carlos said, eyes lighting up with realization. Steve gave him a quick thumbs up to show they were on the same page. "Yeah, well, you know him. Anyway, I'm taking care of it."

"We should all have friends like you, my wonderful Carlos," Cecil said. "I need to get ready for my show now."

"Oh, babe, before you do that," Carlos said, hurriedly, "why can't Steve look Benny in the eye?"

Silence from the other end.

"Cece?"

"I'll let Steve tell you that story," Cecil said. "Ihavetogohoneyseeyoutonight." Cecil hung up his phone.

"Oh, what the hell!"

"Well, if he doesn't want to tell you, I'm definitely not going to," Steve said, returning his attention to his half-written text.

"You weren't gonna tell me anyway," Carlos said, glowering.

_Sorry this is taking so long. Not really sure when I'll be done but I promise I'll let you know the minute I'm free._

\-- _You're still not home? :(_

Steve took a photo of himself, teeth visible through an uncomfortable smile, and sent it to Kevin.

_Something came up._

Kevin's response was to send Steve a photo of his lap that clearly indicated that he was not displeased.

\-- _Here, too_.

"Anyway, Steve," Carlos said. "It should clear up on its own once you've been away from the mini sand shark long enough, but I could probably throw together something to get rid of it faster."

"No...." Steve said distantly. "That's... that's all right."

If it did go away on its own before tomorrow, he still had the mini sand shark in his truck.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll let you read [that story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1082338) yourself.
> 
> Friggin [mini sand sharks.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1043119)
> 
>  
> 
> [Carlos and Cecil's Disney Vacation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1041800/chapters/2081684)


End file.
